Written by Paul Craig Roberts; Originally appeared at his webste
Trump’s “sell-out,” as it is called, coming on top of Obama’s eight-year “sell-out,” is instructive. We have now had a Democratic president who sold out the people who elected him and a Republican president who has done the same thing. This is a very interesting point, the meaning of which most people miss.
But not Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. At the Valdai discussion club, Putin summed up Western democracy, which I paraphrase as follows:
In the West, voters cannot change policies through elections, because the ruling elites control whoever is elected. Elections give the appearance of democracy, but voting does not change the policies that favor war and the elites. Therefore, the will of the people is impotent.People are experiencing that they and their votes have no influence on the conduct of affairs of the country. This makes them afraid, frusrated, and angry, a combination of emotions that is dangerous to the ruling elite, who in response organize the powers of the state against the people, while urging them with propaganda to support more wars.
Obama promised to get out of Afghanistan or Iraq or perhaps it was both. He promised to reverse the police state created by the George W. Bush regime. He promised to focus American resources on American domestic problems, such as health care.
But what did he do? He expanded the wars and launched new ones, destroyed Libya and attempted to destroy Syria, but was stopped by British non-participation and Russian objection. Obama overthrew democratic governments in Honduras and Ukraine. He expanded the police state. He began the demonization of Russia and Putin. He betrayed the American people again by allowing the private insurance industry to write his health care plan known as Obamacare. The private interests wrote a plan that diverts public monies from health care to their profits.
All of this is forgotten when the ruling elites and the presstitutes that serve only them refocused the demonization on Trump. Suddenly, it was the president-elect of the United States who was the main danger to the US and the American people. Trump was a Russian agent. He had conspired with Putin to steal the US election from Hillary Clinton and make the White House a partner of Putin’s alleged reconsruction of the Soviet Empire.
The nonsense was hot and furious, and it was effective. Trump succumbed to pressure and sacrificed his National Secuity Advisior, who was supportive of Trump’s promise to normalize relations with Russia. Trump replaced him with a Russophobic idiot who apparantly cannot wait to see mushroom clouds over cities all over the Western world.
Why did two presidents in succession completely sell out the people who voted for them?
The answer is that presidents are not as powerful as the interest groups who make the decisions.
Trump was going to get us out of Syria, so he committed an unambigious war crime by gratuitously attacking Syria with Tomahawk missiles.
Trump was going to normalize relations with Russia, so his Secretary of State announces that US economic sanctions will stay on Russia until Russia hands over to Ukraine the Russian Crimean naval base on the Black Sea.
It is impossible to normalize relations when the cost to the other party of the normalization is national suicide.
Despite Trump’s complete surrender to the powers that be, today (May 2) on NPR I heard raw propaganda dressed up as “expert opinion” that Trump is biased against the media, when what all of us have seen is massive media bias against Trump, including the program to which I was listening.
For example, NPR had accumulated “experts” who said that Trump had slandered Obama by accusing him of intercepting his comunications. NPR said nothing about the Obama regime’s charge that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.
If anything was slander, this was, but all the talk was about how Obama could sue Trump.
But, of course, both are public figures, and neither can sue the other.
I wonder why NPR’s “expert” didn’t get around to this point.
Why is the ruling oligarchy still using its presstitutes to campaign against a president who has surrendered to them?
Americas has not been democracy for long time. Now is more police state. Governments and politicians all level are for themselves and the own interest. Poverty is on rise, people stroger pay their’s bills . Police brutality is daily events
Police brutality is not a daily event. Crimes of the underclass are a daily event.
All Paul Craig Roberts’ commentaries are clear and his conclusions inescapable. I don’t see any way out. I have long ago given up on the possibility of change. If change does come it will only be after a catastrophe and even then it is not for sure. All I can say is whatever dire fate awaits the west it will be richly deserved.
It is a problem for sure. But the first step to wisdom (and in this case perhaps just sanity) is to face the real facts of the situation. Don’t lose heart you are not alone, and solutions will appear. Many people are waking up from the illusions of yesteryear.
We must hope for 200, 3rd party mayors.
I do agree. As long as people like Paul Craig Roberts live there, America has a chance to get back on track.
The main hope is in 200+ 3rd party mayors.
What President Putin refers to is actually a problem of capitalism. Namely, the aggregation of capital is immanent to capitalism and consequently is the concentration of power to those who hold the capital. They, of course, organise show dubbed as presidential elections (or so) to make people believe they’re in charge of something. In reality, the situation is rather opposite. The same few, owners of the national wealth, finance all political options to disguise their might. The process was described long time ago and compressed into a Latin saying, “Panem at circenses. (Bread and Circuses).
My auto mechanic is intent on world domination.
This articles essentially describes the psychological process of projection – whereby the US’ most powerful interests are transferring their own worst behaviors and thoughts onto others that oppose them. In psychology, projection is seen as an unconscious admission of the true persona, by simply attributing or accusing another person, of all the most unfavorable traits of the actual accuser.
The globalist system dies without perpetual war. The US has been at non-stop war since they burned Atlanta down to the ground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWj7CjZwR9o
IMPEACH PENCE!!!! Though the real solution is more third party mayors. We need about 200 third party mayors to mount a serious electoral challenge and I dearly hope Russia can find a way to help.
Demonization and propaganda war against Russia started under Bush, I’m not defending Obama they are both irrelevant clowns, but the key moment was that Putin speech in Munich back in 2007. it was an anti-globalization speech, shocking for the western elites. Soon they started a war in Georgia (it was something like a warning to Russia), Obama’s ‘reset’ attempt was a last chance for Russia to be assimilated into this US NWO, but it failed, and now we have Ukraine, Syria, and all this anti-russian hysteria.